Dismantle Repair
by Chedea
Summary: It's hard to love someone if they won't let you. A Bella and Edward oneshot about the strength of love in the face of adversity, even when that adversity is the very person you are trying to love.


**So this is something I thought of totally randomly, while watching a movie. its all human, just in case you were wondering. just something I wrote. enjoy :)**

* * *

"Do you want to come to bed?" Bella asked him quietly. She had a feeling she already knew what his answer was going to be, but she asked anyway. Glutton for punishment, as it were.

"Not right now. I'll be in later," Edward muttered. He was quiet, just like she was, treading on careful ground. Things hadn't been the same for over a month now. He knew it and so did she. He just wasn't sure which one of them was going to break first and confront the other.

"Please," she whispered. She didn't know why she was begging. It wasn't like she wasn't used to going to bed alone, falling asleep in an empty bed, wanting after a man that was only a room away but refused her night after night. She would fall asleep without him there and wake up after he was already in the shower. He came home from work, they ate dinner in relative silence, not quite uncomfortable but nothing like the compatible silence that had been there once, that should have been there now. All because of that stupid box and the stupid ring, and the stupid marriage proposal that she wasn't ready for, and couldn't say yes to. She could see his face again in her memory, the way he had thought she was joking as she turned him down. He had even laughed. And then the way his eyes had lost their fire, his smile had faded, his whole body had sagged as he realized she meant it.

"No, Bella. Not right now," Edward answered. Every time he heard her voice now it was like getting cut deeper, being reminded that she didn't want him. So he let his voice be angry for him, let it cut like hers did, let it push. But what he did not expect was Bella to push back.

"I can't take this. I just can't. This is ridiculous, absolutely fucking ridiculous," she nearly screamed. Bella never swore, but she was just so _angry_. She didn't understand why he couldn't see her side of it, why he couldn't, if not understand, then at least agree to disagree and know that it didn't mean she didn't love him, just because she couldn't marry him now.

"What are you talking about?" Edward asked in return, keeping his voice low. But he was surprised. Bella using profanity was something he was unfamiliar with. She had her moments when hell or damn escaped her lips, just like everyone else, but hearing her drop the word fuck was like being slapped across the face. She must have been really angry with him, furious in fact, to talk in such a way.

"You _know_ what I'm talking about. You won't talk to me. You work more hours than ever before, even when we were both working two jobs just to keep our heads above water and food on the table. The times when you are home I feel like I'm with a stranger. It is driving me crazy. I'm sorry I couldn't marry you, Edward. I'm sorry I wasn't ready, that I couldn't complete whatever fantasy you had about the life we were going to have, but I _wasn't_ ready."

"No, I'm sorry, Bella. I'm sorry I thought you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me as much as I wanted to spend mine with you. I'm sorry I assumed that when you said you loved me, it was forever, just like it was when I said it. I'm sorry you don't love me as much as I loved you," he replied, rising out of the chair he had been sitting in, incensed that she was just going to bring it up, wound his pride again, tear his heart in half _again_ with such simple words and act like it was nothing.

"That wasn't it! Oh you still don't get it! It has _nothing_ to do with how much I love you. I didn't say no because I wanted to hurt _you_, or because I don't love _you_. It was because of me, Edward. Me. _I_ couldn't do it, _I_ wasn't ready. But I do love you. And I thought you would still love me. Maybe I was wrong."

That was it. The end of it. He couldn't take it. Edward practically growled as he felt the whole in his middle tear him apart, ripping him at his very seams. He was never angry with Bella, never really at least. He might have been mad for a moment of two, but it lasted a moment or two. But this? She had just accused him of not loving her, and she seemed so convinced.

"Don't you say things like that to me," he warned. She looked at him, a complexity of emotion spreading across her face as each silent second passed by. She didn't understand. She was frustrated, upset, she felt alone even when he was standing right next to her.

"I'm just trying to be honest," she admitted. Edward pulled a hand through his hair and continued to look at her. She bit her lip. He sighed.

"You want honesty?" he asked. It was a rhetorical question. Bella didn't care. She said 'yes' anyway.

"You're so sure I don't love you? You really believe that? Maybe you're right, maybe in the time when I'm not thinking about how beautiful you are, how compassionate, witty, intelligent, caring, gentle, passionate, and strong you are, your incredible sense of humor, the way you challenge me every day, maybe I do think about other things."

She opened her mouth to say something, but he wasn't done.

"Do you know what occupies my mind most of my day? Your smile. The way you kiss me first thing in the morning. How you always apologize first in a fight, even when we both know I was wrong. The way I've only seen you cry once in the entire time I've known you when Charlie got sick, and the way I _hated_ the entire rest of the world for hurting you, how I had to keep _myself_ from crying as you sobbed in my arms and begged me to make it better, and I had to live with the knowledge that I couldn't. The way you look when you concentrate, how your eyes light up when you hear a song you love, the passion you have within every cell of your body, how when you're up doing something ridiculous like dancing on a table at Rosalie's bachelorette party," Bella suppressed a smile, "and then you look at me, it wouldn't matter if we were in the most crowded bar in the whole fucking city, with the music so loud you can't hear someone shout right next to you and you have to be within an inch of someone's face to see who they are because its so fucking dark, it's just you and me.

"The way I wanted to beat the son of a bitch who touched your arm when we went out to dinner the night of Alice's birthday like he had some sort of right even though you're _mine_, you belong to me, and I belong to you. I knew I loved you the day I met you. All you did was smile in my direction, say your name and reach your hand out to me, but I could see it right then, the easy smile, the beautiful laugh, your gorgeous eyes and the way they seem to glitter when you're happy. It was all there. And I loved you. I knew nothing could change that. So go ahead, tell me I don't love you. Tell me I don't think about you, don't care about you. Say it if you really believe it."

More silence. There were tears on Bella's cheeks, rolling down them in hot waves as she stood in front of him, angry with herself now, shouting, screaming in her mind that she was idiot, and now she had finally pushed him away. She had come close to it when she had turned down his proposal, and now she was sure she had done it for real. Until Edward pulled both his hands through his hair, looked at her with the wistful innocence of the child he had been when they met, muttered something like 'fuck, Bella', and took a step in her direction. She crumbled. She told him she was sorry over and over again. Held his face in her cold hands and kissed his forehead, his lips, his closed eyes, his temple, chin, cheek, any part of him she could find and told him she was so sorry, she loved him so much, she didn't mean it.

"Please don't leave me," she begged quietly as Edward pulled her against his chest, feeling the hysterical hiccupping of her breath as she molded herself against his body the way she used to, fitting in his arms perfectly.

"Never. I could never," he answered her. He had thought about it after he proposed, after he realized she wouldn't marry him, after he had to put the ring box in the back of his sock drawer and know it was there every day and hate everything in his life because the woman he loved didn't want him the way he wanted her. But even when the ache was at its very freshest, while it stung every time he felt her eyes on him, heard her sigh, smelled the sweet scent that came off her skin, he knew he couldn't ever let her go. What he had said, about her belonging to him and he belonging to her hadn't just been talk. He knew it was as real as anything else. He couldn't breathe without her. He only went to sleep after she did because having to lie in bed with her and know she was awake beside him, knowing she could turn over and look at him with those big brown eyes scared him. But of course he couldn't sleep anywhere other than their bed. Without the sound of her breath and beat of her heart beside him he could only toss and turn.

Bella shuddered out another breath and felt the wetness below her cheek as her tears soaked into Edward's shirt, the one she had bought him when she was in New York with Alice and Rosalie for her birthday. She lifted her head to say she was sorry again, but he simply pressed her closer to his chest and hushed her, rocking with her, stroking her hair over and over. She really did love him. And he really did love her. She just didn't know how much love counted for when she had hurt him so badly and he had come to detest her with such fervor.

"I'm sorry," she said again, her face pressed mostly into his chest his arms around her tightly. He hadn't held her like this in weeks, had barely touched her except for when it was an accident. Even when he was sleeping and his body seemed to gravitate toward her his broken heart maintained the line between the two of them unconsciously. It felt good, bad, conflicting, confusing, wrong and right to be holding her now.

"You hate me," Bella muttered. She was sure of it. She had seen it in his eyes, how angry he had gotten with her, how he was so quick to raise his voice. He hated her. It made her sick.

With those words though he backed away and looked straight into her eyes. And he shook his head, slowly at first but then with more force.

"No, I do not hate you. I could not hate you even if I wanted to, even if I tried. I _did_ try. It doesn't work. I just don't understand. You say you aren't ready, but I don't see why. You say you still love me, but how can you love me as much as you say you do and not want to be with me for the rest of our lives? That's all I want, Bella. That is _all_. Just to be with you. I don't want to be someone's live in boyfriend anymore. I want to be your husband; I want you to be my wife. Not because I want things to change between us, or for the money it would save us on taxes or any of the other inane things some people get married for. I want it because I want _you_. Can't you see that?"

"But things will change, Edward. They always change," Bella argued.

"Then we will change with them," Edward argued right back. She sniffed and blinked her eyes, feeling the last of the tears slide from her eyes as the crying stopped. Edward bent and stopped the tear with his lips. He hated seeing her cry.

He didn't want to do this anymore. He didn't want to think about it anymore, think about his hurt and hers and watch as they turned away from each other. He could feel their bonds being pulled apart slowly but surely, practically hear every tie he had to her being torn at with the invisible hands of time and the shards of pain.

"I don't think I can do this anymore," he murmured. The look on her face went from shocked to in pain faster than he thought human features could and was shocked he could see it as it happened. She tore herself from his arms in a moment of misunderstanding. But he wasn't about to let her go. She had pulled another piece of his heart with her as she had gone and he couldn't just let her run away with it like she seemed to be trying to.

When he captured Bella around the waist as she tried to run from him, as she tried to run from the way he had smashed her heart in a thousand pieces just then, she wanted to scream but her throat was swollen with new tears and she was choking on them. He didn't want her. He contradicted everything he had just told her in those words.

"Wait, Bella, _wait_, listen to me," he demanded. She sank to her knees, collapsing under the pressure, and not being able to run with his strong hands on her. Not that he made her weak, which of course he did but that wasn't the reason in this case, he was just too strong for her. She _couldn't_ run. She struggled again but he pulled her to him and she flailed uselessly, winding up on her back, Edward's knees poised on either side of her hips as he just fought to make her listen to him.

"I just mean―" he began, trying to explain.

"Stop!" she practically screamed. She couldn't hear this. Didn't want to know what he was going to say about how he couldn't be with her, about how it wasn't enough that she loved him or that he loved her, they were too far apart now. She could feel that. She only wanted to close the gap, but she could feel now that she had only torn them further apart.

"Bella―"

"I can't, Edward! I can't hear it! I don't want to know why you don't―"

This time he cut her off, covering her mouth, making her stop her foolish word with a kiss she felt all the way to her toes. He had hardly touched her in a month, let alone kissed her. She stopped struggling, stopped fighting, stopped trying to get away. When his lips parted hers she accepted the taste of him in her mouth, breathed a sigh of relief when his fingers traced the line of her jaw, cupping her face between then delicately. And when the kiss ended, far too short in her opinion, she only looked at him, breathing slowly and deeply, silent.

"Let's start over. I don't want to hurt every time I look at you, and I don't want to keep hurting you with my distance. I know it's difficult. So let's wipe the slate clean. Start again, from scratch. Do everything all over again."

"We live together, Edward."

"I'll sleep in the guest room," he offered. "I'll even move all my things out of our bedroom. I'll probably become an insomniac if I can't sleep next to you, and I might have trouble with not touching you whenever I want. It will take getting used to, but I will do it, for you, for us, because I love you and want this to work. I will do anything you want me to do."

"Do you think that would work?" she asked. Edward lifted himself from her and let her sit up from where he had pinned her to the floor if only to make her hear him out.

"I don't know. But if it didn't, we could try something else. I love you too much to let you go. I would go crazy without you."

"I understand," she replied in a whisper, rising to sit, pulling her knees to her chest. Edward reached to her and touched her face, tilting her chin toward his face. He met her eyes.

"Will you try, for me, for us?" he asked. She paused and then nodded in silence.

* * *

Edward had moved all of his things to the guest bedroom just as he had promised Bella he would. She changed in the bathroom as he did, as though he had never seen her naked before. But for all intents and purposes, for where they were tonight and would be for a while, he would have to act like he hadn't. All of his clothes were on the chair and dumped unceremoniously in the closet. He was too tired and emotionally drained to bother to organize them in any fashion for the night. He had the entire next day to do it if he wanted to, it being Saturday. Maybe tomorrow he would ask Bella to dinner, for a first date of sorts.

As Edward stripped down to his skivvies and slipped in between the covers of the guest bed, Bella was lying in the bed they had shared for the past six years in three different apartments and now the house in which they lived. It wasn't the same. Going to bed alone wasn't anything new, but knowing that he wasn't coming at all, that he was going to sleep in another room and leave her totally alone, more than she had been in the last month, more than she had been in the past six years of her life. She tossed and turned and couldn't sleep.

Edward hadn't been joking about being an insomniac without her there beside him. He couldn't sleep. He turned on a fan to make some noise so he wouldn't be falling asleep in silence, pulled one of the extra pillows down next to him so it would feel like he was next to someone. But it didn't help. Fans and pillows weren't Bella. They didn't talk in their sleep like she did, didn't thrash in her dreams and kick the blankets away and then shiver from the cold if someone didn't wrap them back around her.

He was about to go drink half of the bottle of their cooking sherry to make himself sleep when the door cracked open. Bella slid through the tiny opening between the door and the wall and closed the door behind her. Edward watched her move and didn't say a thing as she crossed the short path to the bed and pulled back the covers.

She got into bed with him and Edward stiffened. He wasn't sure how to react.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked. She looked at him, like she hadn't known he was awake. She shook her head slowly, finding his eyes in the dark, the reflective orbs of green that seemed to almost glow in the dark of the room.

"Moving awfully fast, don't you think? Crawling into bed with a mostly naked man that you don't know?" Edward joked, if only to hide his unsettlement and excitement of Bella wanting to be near him, share a bed with him.

"Can we start over in the morning?" Bella whispered, ignoring his jesting, reaching out to Edward. Her hands connected with bare flesh and the warmth of him was more of a comfort than she could have predicted.

Edward responded in kind and reached for her as well, bringing her close to him, against his chest and sighed as the smell of her filled his nose and the warmth of her cheek against his chest spread solace through his body. He knew in the morning he was going to have to forget about this, pretend she hadn't been in bed with him tonight, that he hadn't held her against him all night, staying awake for hours as her breathing slowed and she fell asleep beside him, curled into his side like she liked to be, his arms all around her the way _he_ liked to be. She would wake up and smile groggily and then remember and get out of bed slowly with reluctance and duck out of the room to make coffee so they could awkwardly avoid each other in the house they shared.

But for those moments he loved her, she loved him and the world disappeared outside those facts. He kissed the top of her head, told her he loved her in the dark, and fell asleep, matching his breathing to hers.


End file.
